


Everyone ==> Return To Normal Life

by quiescents



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, M/M, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, Quadrant Confusion, Slice of Life, basically everyone getting used to normal life again, chapters based on a version of the 100 theme challenge, more relationships and characters to be added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-07
Updated: 2014-08-07
Packaged: 2018-02-12 03:51:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2094630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiescents/pseuds/quiescents
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A post-game fic where everyone is now living on a new Earth where humans and trolls live together semi-peacefully. It'll mostly be oneshots in the AU, but there will be some longer storylines throughout and all of it will involve everyone adjusting into their new life. Most focus will be on Sollux, Eridan, and Karkat, but other characters will be present too. This will update erratically, pretty much whenever I have the time/motivation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everyone ==> Return To Normal Life

At first, it was hard to remember anything at all. He felt like he was in his recuperacoon at home, but no, that wasn’t right. Home was gone, home didn’t exist anymore. The game and all of its associated memories hit him like a punch to the stomach. Everything was rushing back all at once, not just from the alpha timeline, his timeline, but from all the rest. It felt as if all the Solluxes in every doomed timeline in paradox space had combined their memories into him. It was dizzying, a rapidfire series of scenes filling up his mind. He focused on breathing steadily, trying to ignore the pain. It was what his lusus had taught him to do when the voices in his head got to be too much. This was almost the same thing, so it should work.

Sure enough, after what could have been thirty seconds or thirty minutes, he felt able to think again and sort out which memories were the right ones, the real ones. Then he was able to try and figure out where he was. Gingerly, he got out of the coon and looked around. It definitely wasn’t his respiteblock. He was in a totally unfamiliar room. This thought alone was enough to get a feeling of panic building up in his chest, until he realized that he had just looked around. He could see again. So...that meant that the game had seen fit to heal him.

Sollux looked back and forth between the two closed doors in the room, debating on which to try opening. Hopefully one of them led to a bathroom, since at the moment he was in filthy, sopor-coated clothes. Choosing the one closer to the recuperacoon, he slowly opened it. Jackpot. It was a bathroom. Still wary, he made his way inside and turned on the water for the shower before starting to strip out of the clothes he had been wearing for who the hell knew how long in the dreambubbles. This also gave him an opportunity to think things through. There was a final battle, and he and Aradia had joined their other living teammates for it, trolls and humans working together to defeat Lord English...And they had won. They had won and there were only 10 or 11 still standing in the end when there should’ve been 32, but they had won. Karkat had opened the door and they had all gone through and then nothing. That was the last thing he remembered before waking up here.

After taking a long shower, scrubbing off all traces of grime and blood with the soap mysteriously there, he discovered that the bathroom was also stocked with red and blue towels. Within moments after that, he investigated the closet to find some of his own clothes, as well as some unfamiliar garments that just so happened to be in his favorite styles and colors. This was getting stranger and stranger. Once he was dressed, Sollux’s gaze immediately went to the husktop sitting on the desk. There was no mistaking it, it was his. He’d had it in his sylladex...But, from what he could tell, his sylladex no longer existed. Maybe someone else knew what was going on. This was supposed to be their prize universe, after all. So he sat down and turned on his husktop, opening Trollian. In addition to the eleven friends he had had on there before, the client immediately started making noises to alert him to the fact that he had 20 new friend requests. What the hell?

He looked through the handles of the people who had supposedly added him in the unknown time between entry into this universe and when he’d woken up. At least paradox space had preserved their Trollian accounts. Some of the handles looked familiar, others less so. ectoBiologist, tentacleTherapist, turntechGodhead, gardenGnostic, he recognized those. Those were the humans. He was the only one who had never trolled any of them, so it made sense that they didn’t have his handle before. But then there was gutsyGumshoe, tipsyGnostalgic, timaeusTestified, golgothasTerror...The other humans maybe? Then there were the twelve that could only be the Beforans. Did that mean that everyone was alive again? It had to.

Biting his lip, he accepted all of them. Who else could they possibly be? Now, who was online? He needed some answers and fast, before he completely freaked out. What if he had been out so much longer than everyone else that he was the only one so out of the loop? He looked down only to notice that his hands were shaking with nervousness. And Aradia, his unofficial moirail, was conspicuously offline. Great. Luckily, there were some people online, so now he’d just have to decide who to talk to. Karkat seemed like a good choice.

twinArmageddons [TA] began trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG]  
TA: KK?  
TA: what the fuck ii2 goiing on?  
TA: ii ju2t woke up iin thii2 unfamiiliiar hiive and ii can 2ee agaiin  
TA: ii2 thii2 our reward?  
CG: YES THIS IS OUR REWARD, YOU IGNORANT BULGESUCKER.  
CG: BUT TO BE BRUTALLY HONEST, I’M NOT SURE WHAT’S GOING ON EITHER. BUT YOU SURE TOOK YOUR SWEET TIME WAKING UP.  
CG: LIKE USUAL, HAVING NO CONCERN FOR WHETHER OTHER PEOPLE MIGHT BE PACING A FUCKING RUT IN THE FLOOR WORRYING ABOUT YOU.  
CG: THIS SEEMS LIKE A WEIRDASS HYBRID PLANET, WITH BOTH HUMANS AND TROLLS. A LOT OF US HAVE BEEN TALKING, AND IT SEEMS LIKE EVERYONE STILL HAS AT LEAST SOME POWERS FROM THE GAME, AND EVERYONE IS ALIVE.  
CG: THE MAIN QUESTION IS WHERE THE EVERLOVING FUCK ARE WE?  
TA: 2o thii2 ii2 actually a non-2hiitty reward 2o far?  
TA: better than ii would’ve hoped for.  
TA: unle22 we fiigure out that we’re 2cattered all over the planet.  
TA: that would probably qualiify as really 2hiitty.  
CG: YEAH, I DON’T KNOW HOW WE’RE EVEN GOING TO FIGURE THIS OUT.  
CG: AND A MEMO WITH 32 DERANGED PARTICIPANTS IS JUST CLEARLY A BAD IDEA, WHICH MEANS I HAVE TO BUST MY ASS TALKING TO EVERYONE INDIVIDUALLY.  
TA: you know that you cho2e two do that, riight?  
TA: nobody 2aiid “karkat, go talk two everyone and deal wiith theiir bull2hiit becau2e we fuckiing hate you”  
TA: but whatever.  
TA: keep me updated, ii gue22.  
twinArmageddons [TA] ceased trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG]

Well, now Sollux knew a little bit about the world he was currently inhabiting, but not some of the important things, like where he was in relation to everyone else. That would be pretty damn important, since after all that they had been through, he doubted anyone would be able to go very long without seeing any of the others in person. He knew he wouldn’t be able to, and he tended to prefer solitude. Not to mention incredibly close relationships...Just the thought of Nepeta and Equius being apart from each other left an odd taste in his mouth.

So, after exploring his apartment a bit, he returned to his husktop. Making sure to keep his Trollian notifications on and the volume all the way up, he started his research. As it turned out, the planet was still called Earth, since that was the one it took after most. It did have some elements of Beforan culture as well, and Alternia with all its brutality seemed to be nothing more than a memory. It was easy to use the GPS tracking chip he’d installed in the computer to find out that he was in a city supposedly called Baltimore. 

twinArmageddons [TA] began trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG]  
TA: baltiimore  
CG: WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU ON ABOUT NOW, CAPTOR? I’M BUSY TALKING TO JADE. SHE THINKS SHE CAN USE HER SPACE POWERS AND FIGURE OUT WHERE SHE IS IN RELATION TO US.  
TA: that’2 cool but ii already know where ii am.  
TA: ii ju2t told you.  
TA: 2ome ciity called baltiimore.  
TA: let me know when you know more.  
twinArmageddons [TA] ceased trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG]

It was surprising that nobody else had tried to contact him. Aradia was still offline, yes, but he would’ve thought the others might want to talk to him too...Whatever. They were probably just busy. He didn’t need his hand held every step of the way like some wiggler. Time to continue research.  
Eventually, he did hear the little ding indicative of a new message. Switching windows over to Trollian only led to Sollux gaping at the screen. Why did he want to talk to him?

caligulasAquarium [CA] began trolling twinArmageddons [TA]  
CA: sol i knoww you probably dont wwanna talk to me  
CA: evven after wwe spent all that fuckin torturous time together as a sprite an all  
CA: but im sorry  
CA: im such a fuckin pathetic no good sack a shit wwho did some stupid things  
CA: im sorry

Sollux had to take a few minutes to read what Eridan said over and over, as though he had started typing in a foreign language. He already knew that the seadweller was sorry. They had shared thoughts in their time as Erisolsprite, after all. Which meant that Eridan also knew that Sollux had pretty much forgiven him.

TA: ii know.  
TA: and you know that even though ii don’t know iif you really de2erve iit, ii forgiive you.  
TA: ii’m 2tiill pii22ed, but 2iince everythiing you diid got undone, and you paiid for iit at the tiime anyway  
TA: let’2 ju2t forget about iit.  
CA: really  
CA: yknoww sol you dont havve to forgivve me  
CA: i dont forgivve me so wwhy should you  
TA: but ii do, 2o be grateful and 2hut up about iit.  
TA: thiing2 are diifferent now.  
CA: if you say so   
CA: fef forgavve me too an i havvent talked to kan yet  
CA: an honestly i think its pretty fuckin stupid and soft for you to do so  
CA: but thanks i suppose  
TA: yeah  
TA: you’re welcome.  
TA: and at 2ome poiint ii really need two talk two you and kk about 2omethiing 2o once we know iif we’re anywhere near each other  
TA: we’ll have two meet up.  
CA: sure thing sol  
CA: i gotta go talk to kan noww so ill see you later i guess  
caligulasAquarium [CA] ceased trolling twinArmageddons [TA]

Later, it was established that everyone was in the same city, and that they’d be meeting up the next day. Earth’s sun was nowhere near as powerful as Alternia’s, which meant that everyone was diurnal. That would definitely take some getting used to. In addition, the caste system was only loosely followed, and there was no mandatory contribution of genetic material to drones. Adherence to the quadrant system wasn’t exactly required in the traditional sense anymore either, though it was the basis of relationships for both humans and trolls. 

Besides all the cultural differences and just plain adjusting to normal life again would be hard enough, but now Sollux was planning on proposing what would amount to a three-way quadrant clusterfuck; red, pale, and black all at once, while also being kind of none of them. What were the odds that Karkat and Eridan would ever agree to that? Probably pretty damn close to zero. But for now, all he could do was wait in anticipation for the next day.


End file.
